“The Dragon’s Lady”

Chapter Eight

Guardian

Terry was seriously beginning to question his sanity. It was bad enough that he was standing inside the gates of a city that was inside a root hole, but his guides now bore several tails each and braids down past their waists. When had he stepped into an anime?

“Alright, stop staring,” the leader said, starting to walk further into the town. “We’ve got to get you presentable before you can meet Elder Maeden.”

“I thought I was brought here for Lee?” he asked, shaking his eyes back into place. He’d figure out what they’d put him on later.

Snorter rolled his eyes. “No one gets to meet Lady Prose without going through her guardian first. And you are not meeting the elder like that.”

Looking down at his dirt covered jeans, Terry’s mouth opened with a silent ‘oh.’ He guess it made sense. They’d been calling Lee ‘lady,’ so she was probably someone pretty important to them, whatever they were. Were they even human? And she was young, so it wasn’t really all that surprising that she’d having someone older looking after her.

Walking down the streets of what looked like a medieval Japan, Terry couldn’t help but to notice that most of the people had tails, fox tails to be precise, and that all had hair as long if not longer than his guides’. Two little girls watched him from behind their mother's legs, faces sad. In fact, the entire city seemed to have a depressed air to it, but not in a manner that suggested it was always that way.

They entered a district that looked wealthier than the others he’d seen. The houses were larger and spread further apart with sprawling gardens around them. Two men waited for them at the gate of one such house.

“Is this him?” one asked, his three tails twitching behind him in agitation. The glance that swept over Terry did not speak of approval.

The leading guide nodded with a bow. He turned to Terry. “Go with him.”

Something about his tone told Terry that he should know better than to argue. He nodded shakily, taking a deep breath. With a group bow to the three tail, the five left.

“I am James Green,” the man introduced, ignoring his tailless companion as he turned on his heel to head in toward the house. “You will follow me.”

Terry hurried to comply, not wanting to be left behind. The more human of the pair stopped him from stepping onto the porch until he had pulled off his shoes, vanishing with them in hand. The teenager blinked, but a cough had him running to catch up with Green.

A bundle of cloth was shoved into his hands. “You will put these on after your bath. The haori is folded left over right; you are not a corpse. The hakama is tied in back first. You have half an hour before your audience with the elder.” And he was abruptly shoved into a room where a steaming claw foot tub waited.

“Okay... that was odd,” he said to himself, blinking.

Stripping, he looked around the room for a hamper to dump his dirty clothes into, but found none, meaning that he had no choice but to dump them onto the floor. Time to get clean.

He’d just finished dressing when Green returned, the fox man retying the belt on the strange, skirt-like pants for him in place of a greeting. Much to Terry’s indignation, he then produced a comb from somewhere in his sleeves and ran it through short brown hair, frowning at it all the while. “I suppose you’ll have to do.”

“I’ll have to do for what?” Terry asked, scowling. Okay, so he wasn’t the most polished of people and his hair wasn’t dragging on the floor, but the guy didn’t have to be so rude about it.

“The elder will explain it for you.”

A few minutes later found the two of them kneeling outside a paper screen door. Where Green looked as calm and collected as if he did it everyday, (which, Terry reflected, he might have) the teenager shifted on his legs, trying to get comfortable in the awkward position.

“Elder Maeden, I have brought the human Terry Kelson,” Greed said to the door.

Human, Terry thought. Well, that cemented it. He’d suspected, with their tails, but hadn’t been absolutely sure. If the tailed people weren’t human, what were they? And what interest did they have in him or Lee?

“Bring him in,” a woman’s smooth voice said from within the room beyond.

Green slid the door open, keeping his head down as he nudged Terry to stand and move forward. Stepping through and kneeling again, the fox man shut the door behind him before once again going through the motions of standing, moving, and kneeling. Terry thought it was a little ridiculous, but kept the opinion to himself as he turned to look at the elder.

She wasn’t what he’d expected at all of someone referred to as an elder of any kind. The woman’s long hair ran straight and dark over her silk clad back and shoulders, two locks falling on either side of her face in front of her ears. The face itself was young, late twenties at the oldest, and every pale. The only thing that hinted of being older was her eyes, which looked ancient. If she had any tails, they were hidden by her many layers of clothing.

Maeden must have read his expression correctly, for she laughed lightly. “I assure you, Mr. Kelson, that I am quite old. I was one of the original founders of this city. By I doubt that you wanted to hear a history lesson. Mr. Green, you may leave us, and would you alert the lady to our guest‘s arrival? Thank you.”

The man bowed low before leaving the same way that he’d come. Once the two were alone, Terry turned back to the woman. “Where is Lee?”

She laughed again. “How direct and to the point you are. I can see why my ward enjoys your company so much. It must be such a relief from the circling ways of the courts.”

“Would you please answer my question?” Terry asked, grinding his teeth.

“She is in her rooms, working on a letter,” Maeden said simply, gesturing in the direction with a sleeve concealed hand, only the tips showing. “She will join us shortly.”

“Why is she so important to your people?” He had to know, and before she got there. If it was something bad, he wanted time to school his face. “Lee’s only human.”

Maeden didn’t laugh his time, but instead covered a smile with a sleeve, dark brown eyes sparkling over it. “Are you so sure?” He didn’t have time to react before the door behind him slid open and the elder turned her attention to the figure standing behind him. “Ah, Lady Prose, there you are.”

“I hope that I did not keep you waiting for too long,” the younger voice, one that he hadn’t heard for two weeks, said. It held the same tones as when she’d gone with the men.

“Not all at,” Maeden said gently. “Come, sit with us. Mr. Kelson and I were just getting acquainted.”

Looking sideways at her as the young woman knelt down, Terry wasn’t immediately sure if she actually was Lee. Her hair was longer and a darker shade of red, styled in the same fashion as the elder in front of them. Her face was much paler, and he couldn’t see any of the freckles he know had started to show up with the summer weather. But what really struck him was that her face was older. The woman next to him could no longer be mistake for a teenager. Terry would have guessed that she was in her twenties already. But her locket was present around her neck, and her eyes were the same. Looking at them more closely, he could see the grief in them. The three deaths had struck her hard.

“How much further do you have in your preparations?” Maeden asked the girl, watching Terry even as he made his own observations.

“Merely to prepare my guardian in his duties,” Lee said softly. “Otherwise, I have packed what I must and only wait to leave.”

Terry exploded. “Leave? What do you mean leave? Do you have any idea who worried your parents have been! Your mother-”

“My mother is dead!” Lee snapped, breaking composure. With a gasp, she turned her face away from them. “I apologize for raising my voice, Elder.”

“It is understandable, Lady Prose, in your time of grief,” the older woman said. “Perhaps I should leave the two alone so that you may explain things to Mr. Kelson. The poor boy looks to be quite bewildered. My parlor is open for your use.”

“Thank you, Elder Maeden,” Lee said, standing with her head still bowed in shame. “Mr. Kelson, if you would follow me.”

Fruitlessly trying to read her expression, Terry could only do as told as he was led out of the room and into another, more comfortable one filled with lounge pillows and small, unlit incense pots. When she’d stood, his hopes that Lee was just another human caught up in these fox’s magic (for that’s what it had to be) like he was were dashed. She, like every other well dressed person in the city, bore a fox tail. It was the same color as her hair, turning white at the tip.

“Lee, what’s going on?” he asked as soon as the door had been slid shut. “What do you mean that your mother is dead?”

Instead of an answer, he received an armful of silk and hair as his longtime friend clung to him, crying. The sudden change in mood threw him for a moment, but instinct quickly had him rubbing soothing circles over her back and lowering them both onto a nearby pile of pillows. How long had she been keeping this bottled up?

He winced as claws that he hadn’t seen dug into his chest. Feeling the movement, Lee pulled away, instantly curling her hands to herself. Terry still couldn’t seen the claws, but he knew that he’d felt them.

She wiped away her tears with a sleeve, leaving Terry to wonder just how many purposes the sail-like things had, before settling back on her heels. “I’m sorry, I-”

“It’s alright,” he said quickly, keeping himself from opening the haori enough to see the damage. “It was an accident. Now, tell me what’s going on, Lee.”

And so she told him. She told about her true race, and her place in it. About her father’s death in Russia when she was a child, about her engagement to Leon and the fact that Brianna and the cheerleading captain of the school were both her guards. About her mother’s recent death, and the journey she was now expected to take in a shorter amount of time than any other had since mythological times. When it came to why she’d wanted Terry there, however, she froze up.

“I should never had called you here,” she said, refusing to meet his eyes. “It’s asking too much of you. I couldn’t-”

“What is it?” he pressed, leaning forward and taking her hands.

“I want you to come with me,” Lee said quietly. “I’m required to have a guardian with me on my maiden’s travels, and will need someone with me to ground my magic. There aren’t many left that I trust enough. But I’m being selfish. You have family here. The woman my mother took with her was a widow. She wasn’t leaving anyone behind, but you-”

“I would be honored,” Terry said, cutting her off again.

“Terry, your mother,” she reminded, eyes sad. “She’s already lost so much. How can I take away the only person she has left?”

“How can I deny you the same?” he asked, squeezing her hands. “Besides, where did you say that I could never come back and visit, hm? So I’ll be your guardian and grounder or whatever the title is. You’re not going to have much luck convincing me otherwise, so don’t bother trying.” In less than a heartbeat, he’d been tackled again, this time by a laughing woman instead of a crying one. “Ack! Lee, get off me!”